How Parramatta debutant cheated death with broken neck

Most players need a lucky break in order to make it to the NRL, but the one experienced by Jaemon Salmon is something else.

The Parramatta utility will make his first grade debut against the Gold Coast on Saturday, but this time last year he was lucky to walk off a football field with his life intact. Salmon was tackled awkwardly as he was sliding in for a try during a NSW Combined Catholic Colleges schoolboys carnival. It was only later that he learned how close he came to tragedy.

“I got up and my neck was pretty bad, I could tell something was wrong,” Salmon told Sin Bin.

“I went to the hospital and they were ‘You don’t need an x-ray, it’s just muscular’.”

Advertisement

So Salmon played again the next day with what would later be diagnosed as a broken neck.

“I was moving like a robot,” he said.

“I couldn’t sleep for two nights, had massive headaches and my dad took me out of camp.

“The C1 vertebra is close to the brain, so I was getting massive headaches and neck pain. Pain killers weren’t doing anything, so my dad took me to hospital.

“They got the x-rays and it was two complete fractures of my C1 vertebra. I was talking to someone who said I could have died.

“If I had got tackled the wrong way it would have cut my breathing off and I would have died.

“I was very, very close to being a paraplegic or quadriplegic. Honestly, it was crazy. Insane.”

The recovery period meant Salmon was never going to be available until round five of this season, but Parramatta recruiter Matt Desira, previously his manager, made the Cronulla junior his first Eels signing. Their reward will be Salmon’s debut on the weekend.

“I haven’t really stopped to think about it, I sort of brush it,” Salmon said about how his story nearly ended.

“That’s how I deal with it. I do know it could have been very different.

“If you dwell on it too much, it will muck up your confidence.”

Survey says yes

The NRL’s on-again, off-again player poll is on again. The survey is one of the first big projects for the staff at NRL.com, but was initially pulled due to concerns over some of the controversial content. However, the poll of more than 100 players will be released this week, minus some of the salacious questions and answers. One of the questions was ‘which team would you play for if not your own?’ The answers may surprise.

Bird won't be let free after Moses swap deal blocked

Jack Bird has told those close to him he wants to return to Sydney, but plans of a player swap with Mitchell Moses have been knocked on the head by Wayne Bennett.

Bird has endured a difficult first season at Brisbane that has been restricted to just eight games due to injury. Moses, meanwhile, has failed to reach the heights he scaled last year at Parramatta as the club battles to avoid the wooden spoon. They are both contracted long-term but there are elements within the clubs that wanted to see them switch places.

Some Broncos officials would like to see Moses shift north, believing they are just an organising halfback away from having a complete team. However, it won’t happen because Bennett is against it.

While disappointed with Parramatta’s fortunes, Moses said he has no regrets about joining the blue and golds.

“I’ll definitely be here next year,” Moses said.

Money won't be the reason if New York Test is canned

The promoter behind the New York Test is adamant funding isn’t an issue and is even prepared to stump up $1 million up front to prove as much to the NRL.

The man behind the project, Ricky Wilby, is holding out a glimmer of hope of staging the event this year, but concedes time - rather than money - is conspiring against him. With only 10 weeks until the proposed Australia-Tonga clash at Red Bull Arena, Wilby will need the green light in coming days or be forced to postpone until next year.

“Nothing has changed as far as we’re concerned, we’re still trying to thrash everything out with the lawyers,” he said.

“We want to make sure it’s our baby and the NRL don’t want to be embarrassed by anything, we don’t want to be embarrassed by anything.”

Asked if he would be able to provide a seven-figure guarantee up front, he said: “No one has asked us for that but it wouldn’t be an issue.”